Will The Hyperloop Spark A Patent Revolution?

You know that pneumatic tube that you use to shoot bank deposits to the teller at the drive-through window? You may soon be traveling cross-country in a similar device. That’s the basic premise of the Hyperloop, a high-speed transportation system that was first introduced by SpaceX and
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk in 2013, which proposes to send travelers shooting down pneumatic tubes in pods at speeds upwards of 500 miles per hour.

Although it sounds more sci-fi than most infrastructure projects we hear about these days, the initiative has taken serious steps forward this summer. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, a collaborative initiative created by JumpStartFund, using the company’s crowdfunding and crowd-sourcing platform to help drive the development, has just signed agreements with Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum and a global engineering firm Aecom and plans to start construction on a full-scale, 5-mile prototype in 2016.

The effort has also drawn a team of 400 volunteers from the likes of
NASA,
Boeing and SpaceX who will be donating their expertise to the project. In addition, a contest organized by SpaceX to design the perfect pod for this groundbreaking technology has already signed up 700 competitors since it was announced earlier this month.

It all sounds like a dream out of the future, but, surprisingly, it also has some roots in the past.

A recent analysis from
Thomson Reuters has found that the patent category for pneumatic, pod-based transportation– which has existed since 1799–could be set to explode.

Back to the Future

Pneumatic tube devices have been staples of modern life for years. But it’s one thing when it’s interoffice memos and bank statements flying from the drive through kiosk to the teller. The idea of utilizing this type of technology for transportation seems revolutionary. Yet in fact, it’s far from a new idea.

In total, there are around 30 inventions relating to pneumatic mass transportation systems from the mid-1960’s to present. The earliest example of a patent for a pneumatic transport system reaches all the way back to 1799. A patent for “conveyance of goods and passengers by air” was awarded to George Medhurst in the 18th century, laying the foundation for the work on the Hyperloop project.

MagLev Garners More Attention

So if the pneumatic travel patent category is over 200 years old, why hasn’t it been more fully developed? Quite simply, Magnetic Levitation (MagLev) transportation was seen as a more viable alternative.

The Hyperloop might be gaining momentum around pneumatic technology now, but a far bigger range of patents exist for MagLev transportation systems.In a MagLev system, vehicles travel along a guideway using magnets to create both lift and propulsion (think something along the lines of Disney’s Monorail).

Over 1,100 patents have been filed in this category since the mid-1980’s, the bulk of which originate in Japan. Japan has two functioning MagLev trains currently in service: the HSST by Japan Airlines and the SCMaglev by the Central Japan Railway Company.

IBM’s Alternate Vision for the Future of Transportation

The Hyperloop may be one of the more ambitious ideas for the future of transportation, but it’s certainly not the only one. Another category showing a ton of innovative activity in recent years has been autonomous vehicle development.

With the top software manufacturers intently working towards taking the human element out of driving, autonomous-driving patents have seen a huge spike in the last three years, jumping from roughly 700 in 2011 to over 1400 in 2013.

Although many consumers widely believe it will be Google that will be leading the market into the self-driving automotive space, a look at the top patentees in this category shows that may not be the case. IBM is the leading patentee in the autonomous vehicle space with 240 inventions, followed by Microsoft and Hitachi (each with just over 200). Despite the sizzle around Google’s self-driving cars buzzing around Palo Alto, they have filed fewer than 100 patents in this category.

There is still plenty of work to be done before we’re strapped into a pod to make the trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes or less, but the foundation is there. And with a new groundswell of interest spawned by the Hyperloop project, that day may come sooner than later.

Basil Moftah formerly led the IP & Science business of Thomson Reuters. His posts were made during his tenure with the company.